


It's A Lot (But Nothing Will Ever Be Enough)

by Siren_whispers



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: And Carlos loves his ghost brothers, Bad Jokes, Bad Parenting, Caleb Covington Being a Bastard, Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, I let Everyone Say Fuck, Idiots in Love, M/M, Ray Molina is a Good Dad, Tia Victoria comes around to them, oblivious idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-22 14:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siren_whispers/pseuds/Siren_whispers
Summary: After season 1 of JATP things are different, better, but still not perfect.  This is my take on what happens next.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Flynn/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	1. The Sun Will Rise Another Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically my second fanfic for this fandom but I started it before I wrote that first one so...  
> I have quite a few chapters already written and ready to be proof-read so the first seven or so will probably be posted more closely together than the last few.  
> I like to listen to music as I'm doing things, so chapter titles are probably just going to be lifted from whatever I was listening to at the time of posting.
> 
> There's nothing, like, explicit in this whatsoever, but the use of bad language is liberal and teenagers make bad jokes so...  
> (also I feel like Alex swears the most out of the boys and Reggie the least and I think I could explain why I think this but I wont...)

Julie wasn’t sure how long they had been standing there but she knew it hadn’t been long enough for her to want to let go. The phantoms, her band, her friends had broken the spell and  _ they could touch her!  _ They could actually touch her. She was wrapped up in a tight, unfaltering group hug, like they were all equally scared to let go in case they wouldn’t be able to replicate it again. But she was there in the moment and she could feel the guys’ skin against her own; they felt too cold but they were  _ there  _ and that was the only thing that mattered. She was sure she could smell them too, a spiced scent hung in the air and she was fairly certain it was some cologne or shampoo or something Alex had used before they died. It almost hid the metallic twinge of death that she knew made sense but wanted to will away. She couldn’t, because they were dead, they were just also tangible.

Alex was the first to break the contact and Julie had kind of been expecting him to be. His hands were shaking and he looked unsure and nervous but elated at the same time. He looked at his hands for a moment before shoving them into his pockets as though that would solve the problem, looking at Luke as he drifted out of the hug but kept the contact between his arm and Julie’s and suppressing a fond grin at Reggie’s refusal to let go. He got it but, even though he didn’t have a heartbeat and he doubted he even had a heart, there was an aggressive anxious feeling in his chest.

“So this is weird,” He decided, rocking from his toes to his heels and gripping the fabric in his pockets in his fists.

“But awesome!” Reggie called out from behind Julie’s hair. She giggled and pulled it out of his face.

“But what is it?” Alex started pacing, pulling his hands from his pockets and drumming one against his thigh as he gestured emphatically with the other, “Does it mean we’re free? How? And why can we touch Julie now--no offense Julie you’re cool but I’m freaking out,”

“Dude-” Luke started, taking a step away from Julie but grabbing her hand as he went.

“You better not be telling me to calm down!” Alex interrupted, pausing his pacing momentarily before resuming with renewed vigor.

“Your model strut is making my brain hurt,” Reggie said, eyes following Alex’s feet.

“That’s what’s making your brain hurt?” Alex looked incredulous, “Julie, please back me up, I can’t be the only sane one here,”

“It’s weird,” she agreed, “but it seems like you guys are safer now and you didn’t pass on and I can touch you and we just played  _ the Orpheum!”  _ She pulled her hand from Luke’s and stepped away from Reggie, ignoring the puppy-eyed looks of betrayal in her wake, “So maybe it is weird, but everything has always been weird--you guys are literally ghosts!--and at least now things seem like they’re going to be okay, and I think we’re all better off now than we have been in a while,” She put her hand between Alex’s shoulder blades and he looked down at her.

“You’re right,” He relented, leaning against Julie and casting an arm around her shoulders, “and we did do all of that. We just played the Orpheum, you guys were incredible!”

“Come one man,” Luke walked over and side-hugged him, “don’t sell yourself short like that!”

“Okay, you’re right,” Alex grinned, “I was killing it,” he was filled with nostalgia and broken out of fond memories as Reggie came rushing over to join in on what soon became group hug round two.

* * *

  
  


When Julie left the studio her dad was waiting outside with open arms and a grin on his face. He pulled her into a tight hug and chuckled fondly into her hair as she tightened her arms around him. “Estoy muy orgulloso de ti, mija,” He told her, just in case she wasn’t already aware.

“Gracias Dad,” she mumbled contentedly into his shirt before stepping back from the hug.

“So, who were you speaking to in there?” He pointed his thumb towards the studio and began the walk through the chill of the night back to the house. He had hot chocolate waiting for them in the kitchen.

“Oh I was on the phone with the guys,” She half lied.

“Speaker phone?” Ray made a face and Julie’s heart missed a beat, “You had it awfully loud, you haven’t damaged your hearing have you,”

“No Dad, I’m speaking to you fine now, aren’t?” She really hoped she sounded convincing because maintaining the conversation in that moment felt so forced. Could her dad actually here the guys talking to her? What did that mean exactly? She doubted Alex would take the news well, it was too much all at once for her and he always seemed about a moment away from being overwhelmed.

“Do I get to speak to them any time soon?” Ray asked and Julie really didn’t know the answer to that.

“We’ll see,” She said, hoping it didn’t sound suspicious, “I’ll have to speak to them,”

“Of course,” Ray led her into the kitchen and handed her the mug of hot chocolate he had made for her, “Enjoy that. I know it’s been quite the day for you,” That was an understatement, “but do try to get to sleep at a reasonable time. Te amo, mija,”

“Te amo también,” she waved him off as he disappeared upstairs.

  
  


It was about ten minutes later, most likely once he had heard snoring coming from their father’s room, that Carlos came bounding down the stairs, thick socks muffling the sound of his feet on the floor. Everything about his demeanour was excited and he didn’t for a moment look like he was tired.

“Ghost band!” He whisper-shouted as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs and Julie was too overwhelmed to even be surprised. He had been snooping around the topic of ghosts for so long, it was basically inevitable he would find something eventually.

“Ghost band,” She finished her hot chocolate in one long sip, “Umm, do you want to come with me and test something?”

“Does it have anything to do with your band?”

“Uh,” She put her mug in the sink and looked just a little to the left of Carlos’ eyes, “Yeah, yes it does,”

“Then lead the way!”

Julie chuckled and tried to pretend like she knew what was going to happen when she walked into the studio with Carlos in tow. He was practically buzzing next to her and she barely managed to convince him to put on the shoes he had by the door before they stepped outside. Carlos ran to the studio and just waited restlessly outside of the door for Julie to catch up. “Come on!” He insisted, waving his hands and standing on his tiptoes trying to see through the windows. “Am I going to be able to see and hear them?”

“Oh, I’m not sure,” She paused for a moment before opening the door. Carlos didn’t hesitate for a moment before sprinting into the room and Julie took a few hesitant steps in. The boys were probably up in the loft because she could hear them but couldn’t see them. Based on the laughter she’d guess that they were either teasing Luke about her, teasing Alex about Willie, or teasing Reggie about her dad.

“Is that them?” Carlos asked loudly. The laughing stopped, answering his question.

“You can hear them?” Julie asked, just to confirm. He nodded enthusiastically and she just responded with a more hesitant nod of her own before leading him up towards the loft. Alex was going to freak out again.

“Are they here?” Carlos asked, looking around the loft space that was mostly taken up by a mattress and semi-organised storage she assumed was Alex’s doing. The guys were sitting on the mattress; she had a feeling they had sat up abruptly when they’d heard her and Carlos come in.

“Uhh, yeah,” She sat carefully on the mattress and Reggie immediately put his feet in her lap. Carlos made a high-pitched startled noise. “Are you okay?” She asked him, whipping her head around. He was pointing right at Reggie.

“He wasn’t there and then he was!” He exclaimed.

“Hey little dude,” Reggie grinned, not surprised enough by the strange turn of events.

“Hi,” Luke waved but Carlos couldn’t see it.

“Um hi Carlos. Julie what’s happening? Can he hear us? He can see Reggie? Why can he see Reggie?” Alex would definitely have been pacing were the loft not too cluttered and Luke’s legs not keeping his in place. He drummed on Luke’s knee and looked at Julie with that all too familiar look on his face.

Carlos was looking around blindly, “Where are the others?” He asked Julie, “I can hear them but I can’t see them,” Julie grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the mattress beside her. He sat and reached over her to Reggie, trying to touch him. His hand phased right through and they both made a similar face of displeasure. “That feels weird,” Carlos said but then immediately did it again. “Wait--have I been walking through them accidentally? This feels familiar,” Julie shrugged and Reggie nodded.

“Luke, Alex,” Julie turned to them, “Give me your hands, I wanna try something,” Luke shrugged and Alex furrowed his eyebrows but they both reached for the hands she was offering them.

“Woah,” Carlos said breathlessly, looking intensely at the band. Reggie maneuvered his torso so he could see his face more clearly.

“Has he blinked in the last five minutes?” He asked after a while, genuinely quite concerned. Julie shook her head.

“So, Julie, going to introduce us properly?” Luke grinned and suddenly Carlos was grasping at her sleeve and begging her to do exactly that.

  
  


They had just got introductions out of the way, each one rather loud and excited because she and Alex seemed to be the only ones who remembered that it was night and her father was sleeping nearby, when there was a knock at the studio door. Ray didn’t give her time to answer it before he was walking in and calling her name. He didn’t sound particularly pleased.

Julie pressed her finger to her lip telling Carlos to be quiet and he obediently pressed his lips together. However, Luke, whether he just wasn’t watching or forgot that people could apparently hear them now, didn’t quite get the memo.

“Shit,”   


“Julie?” Her dad called again. He seemed less pleased. “Who’s up there?” Julie hit Luke’s shoulder as she hoisted herself to her feet and Carlos watched the band fade away.

“You’re already abusing that power?” Luke whispered somewhat incredulously. Julie just made a face at him.

“Umm hi Dad,” she clambered down with little grace and tried to ignore the way her dad was looking at her, arms crossed.

“Who’s up there with you?” He didn’t return her greeting.

“Hi Dad!” Carlos called down, sticking his head out so Ray could see it.

“That wasn’t your voice,” Ray said sternly, though knowing Carlos had been up there with Julie did give him some peace of mind, at least she wasn’t alone in the loft with some teenage boy he doubted he knew.

“Right,” Julie realised that she was kind of damned by this point and the truth was probably going to be the easiest thing to tell her dad. That didn’t mean it was going to be easy or pleasant. “Umm guys come down here,” She beckoned and Ray watched the loft, expecting to see people emerging to answer his questions but nobody was there except Carlos. Still, Julie seemed satisfied that everyone she had called to was where theory needed to be.

Reggie walked towards Ray to say hello like he always did, probably ramble about some topic or another that Alex and Luke wouldn’t engage with, and Alex had to grab his arm and hold him in place. Reggie opened his mouth to talk and Luke slapped a hand over it. If Julie wasn’t trying to save face in front of her father she would have giggled. “Dude,” Alex told him quietly, trying to reapply a principle Willie had taught him in the museum and refocus his energy away from his mouth so he could speak without the lifers hearing. Reggie looked at him like he was an incredible hypocrite but not even Julie gave any indication that she had heard. Reggie’s eyes went wide and he before Luke could replace his hand over his mouth he was speaking.

“Dude, how did you do that?”

“For fucks sake, Reggie,” Alex didn’t try muting that one.

Ray’s eyes found Julie’s as she muttered a reprimanding “Language,”. His face was full of questions. Julie fell heavily backwards onto the old sofa and sighed knowing she’d have to answer them. “Okay,” She looked up at him, “This is going to seem a bit weird…” She was thinking of how best to introduce the supernaturality of her band when Carlos did it for her.

“They’re ghosts!” he exclaimed excitedly. Ray rolled his eyes.

“Very funny mijo, but your sister still needs to explain what’s going on here,”

“He’s right,” Julie and the band all said at the same time.

“Please stop talking for a bit guys,” Julie sighed as her dad tried to rationalise how he’d just heard three voices when there was clearly nobody else or any technology that could stream their voices in the room.

“He’s right,” she tried again. The boys weren’t joining in this time and she couldn’t hear them speaking at all but it looked like Alex was saying something. She’d have to ask him about that later.

“They’re ghosts?” Ray wanted to sound unimpressed and unconvinced but he couldn’t help but doubt his conviction and Julie looked like she could tell.

“They were in a band,” Julie started, her brow furrowed, “in the 90’s…” she chewed on her lower lip and the guys settled around her on the couch, careful not to touch her until she okayed it. Ray guffawed. “With Trevor Wilson,” She finished after a pause. Ray looked like there was a computer in his brain and it was very quickly short circuiting.

“Julie,” he said her name like a warning so she pulled out her phone and found the Sunset Curve article she had stumbled across a couple of months before.

“A Hollywood Tragedy, first published traditionally on the 23rd of June 1995” Ray read before gulping and focusing his eyes on the photo attached to the article. It was a very nineties photo, washed out and grainy and featuring a couple of curtain bangs and cheesy posing. He recognised all four of the teenage boys in the photo, one from the old photos in an acquaintance’s house and three from his daughter’s band. He gulped and handed Julie back her phone without reading the article.

“So this is why I haven’t met your band?” he managed to choke out, trying to sound like he hadn’t just learned that ghosts exist and he was sharing a space with three of them.

“You can meet them now?” Julie posed the question looking sheepish. Ray nodded meekly so she held out a hand to either side of her. Reggie and Alex grabbed the offered hands and Luke put his hand on her shoulder. Ray jumped back when there were suddenly three familiar teenagers sitting close to his daughter.

“That’s so cool!” Carlos exclaimed. He’d seen it not long before but the novelty of it was still very fresh. Ray was staring how Carlos had been earlier.

“This is Luke,” she introduced one of the dark-haired boys. He was smiling slightly and seemed rather outgoing but he still looked appropriately unsettled. “Alex,” The blond boy waved and had the distinct look of a overwhelmed person who was trying to smile but was also very aware they could be doing a better job at it. Ray tried to smile back at him because he didn’t know how ghosts worked and the boy looked about ready to combust. “And Reggie,” Julie leaned closer to her father, “He’s really excited to meet you,” Ray had to admit that he looked it. 

It didn’t take long for him to get absorbed into a conversation with the ghosts, mostly Reggie who seemed to have an endless list of things on his mind that he wanted to share with Ray. Once they’d ticked off the first few objects on the list Ray found himself genuinely enjoying the conversation and blocking out the voice in the back of his mind that was a bit too concerned for his sanity

  
  


“We’ll talk about this again in the morning,” Ray told them, yawning and deciding that he really needed to go back to bed. It was probably early morning by that point and the light filtering through the windows was just beginning to lighten. “Ghosts,” he addressed them as a collective.

“We prefer musician spirits,” Reggie corrected. Each one of the guys had a hand placed somewhere on Julie’s back, shoulders, or arms.

“Yeah, you can just call them ghosts,” she said.

“Do you guys sleep in here?” Ray asked them, “Do you guys even sleep? We could set up the guest bedroom for you, I don’t think that old mattress in the loft has ever been comfortable,” They had all slept in the studio enough times to know that statement had been true for over 25 years.

“Yeah, we don’t really sleep,” Alex said.

“Right,” Ray nodded, “Of course, ghosts,” He shook his head at the floor “Ghosts who are my age but also 17,”

Reggie made a face, “25 years of that were spent in a dark room where Alex cried,”

He winced when Alex reached over Julie to flick his arm. “We’ve been over this,” he turned to Ray as if to defend himself, “It felt like an hour and I had just died,”

“Right,” Ray said again. Because ghosts. Teenage ghosts who died young and played music with his daughter. “And you died by poisoning and you know how that feels,”

Luke screwed up his nose, “It doesn’t feel good,”

“Yeah, I’d guessed that,” Ray looked to Julie who looked apprehensive about his reaction but far too comfortable with the ghosts. Literal dead teenagers who he was talking to about their deaths. Either the world was way weirder than he thought or he’d need to get in contact with Doctor Turner. “So what actually happened,” he didn’t know ghost etiquette so he asked it quietly as if that made it any less potentially impolite, “the article just said accidental poisonings,”

“Umm yeah,” Alex went bright red and Ray wondered if he even had blood, “We ate some bad hotdogs,”

“Interesting way to die,” Ray remarked weakly because he felt like it might be funny were it not about teenagers dying. “On a completely related note I will be avoiding hotdogs for the rest of my life,”

“Even the word makes my stomach hurt,” Reggie grimaced.

“You don’t really have one anymore, Reg,” Julie piped up, speaking once she felt like the incredibly awkward doubting tone of the conversation had worn off a little bit.

“ _ Phantom  _ pains,” he responded.

Alex wanted to agree with the original statement but his brain got caught on it. He shot to his feet and barely heard Reggie making a remark that sounded a lot like  _ not again. “ _ Shit!” Ray would have reprimanded him for the language if anything was normal. As soon as Alex had stood he had faded out of Ray’s sight. Carlos was also watching an empty space. “ _ Hotdog,”  _ he repeated, picking at the skin around his nails. Reggie groaned and placed a hand over his abdomen as Luke’s eyes met Alex’s, confused and searching for a moment before it set in.

“Oh,” Luke echoed, realising what was bothering Alex so much. Julie leaned forwards, pulling her hand from Reggies as she did. He flickered for a moment before he replaced it on her back. She put her hands over Alex’s, noticing that he was picking at the skin on his hands and not being particularly eager to find out if ghosts could bleed. She doubted it but the skin was looking red and raw.

“Oh?” Reggie repeated but then he got it, “ohhhh,”

“What’s happening?” Ray asked, able to see everyone but unable to understand what was happening.

Julie didn’t answer him. “Willie?” she asked Alex. He nodded meekly.

“Who’s Willie?” Carlos asked, entirely too brightly. He needed to learn to read a room. Ray nodded anyway, more so at the question than the tone.

“Alex’s ghost b-” Reggie started. Alex made a panicked noise and he stopped, looking at Alex, not for the first time, like he’d lost his mind. But then he understood that historically that was not a conversation that had gone well for Alex so he should just leave it alone for the time being.

“He’s my ghost friend,” he looked pointedly at Reggie. Ray wondered if the telepathic looks between the band were a ghost power or a friend thing. “This asshole kind of owns his soul and he also definitely thinks we’d passed over,”

Right, Ray sighed, that was a lot. “Carlos, go to bed,” his son looked like he wanted to protest but he didn’t when Ray raised his eyebrows at him. “Evil ghosts?” he looked at the band.

Julie nodded, “He almost got to them too,” she made a gesture even though she didn’t have a hand free “but we managed to break the curse somehow. He’s still got a bunch of ghosts under his control though apparently. Willie helped us get the gig and we thought that would be it and they’d pass over.”

“We thought it was our unfinished business,” Luke filled in, “We lived for music and died for it,”

Ray nodded slowly, “Right, ghosts things like crossing over and unfinished business, because Sweden and holograms is too easy,”

Luke snorted and looked at Julie, “Sweden? Really?”

“I panicked,” She stressed.

“So they’re definitely not from Sweden?” Ray asked and Reggie shook his head.

“Luke and I have lived in California our whole lives, Alex moved here from Oklahoma when he was 12,”

“And that was in 1990?” Ray checked again, “When I was 14?” They all nodded then Alex paused and chuckled darkly.

“Holy shit, I moved here exactly five years before we died, like  _ to the day,” _

Luke looked at Alex with pity in his eyes that the Molinas didn’t understand, “And you lived in that house for exactly four years,”

Ray knew ghosts didn’t sleep but he didn't think he’d ever seen a person look as tired as Alex did. He shook his head and his hair fell in front of his eyes. He didn’t bother removing it. “I guess the 22nd of June is just cursed for me,” he shrugged.

“Hey!” Reggie was indignant, “That’s when you met us!”

Alex looked at him pointedly, “Yeah, as I was saying, cursed,”

“Hey!” Reggie and Luke exclaimed. Julie giggled and Alex pulled his hands from hers, falling heavily back onto the old sofa. He disappeared from Ray’s view and Julie leaned towards her father.

“This is good,” she told him quietly, “he’s being a bit more normal,”

Ray sniggered. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to use that word again. “Maybe not normal, mija,” his smile was genuine but tired, “I think I’m retiring that word,” And maybe it wasn’t normal and everything was still a little (see: a lot) unsettling but he had a feeling he was going to like these boys. Julie stood up and the guys disappeared.

“Buenas noches, ghosts,” Ray told the empty space where he assumed they still were, then he took Julie’s hand and led her back towards the house.

  
  


Once he assumed the ghosts could no longer hear him (assuming they weren’t following,  _ he really hoped they weren’t following,  _ everything was just a little  _ too  _ weird at that moment) he turned to Julie, still walking slowly by her side. “You could have told me, mija,” he told her quietly. She sighed.

“I didn’t want you to send me back to Doctor Turner,” she said quietly. Ray could have kicked himself, suddenly remembering what must have been the day when the band showed up and what he had told her. “Besides,” she pulled her hand from his and ran it through her curls, “The guys needed this,  _ I needed this.  _ I don’t know how long it would have taken me to play again if it wasn’t for them,”

“They seem like good kids,” Ray held the door open for them and they stepped in out of the chill. It wasn’t  _ cold  _ but it was cold for southern California, “but no ghost boys in your room if the door is closed,”

She went bright red, “Dad! They’re literally dead!” That wasn’t going to sway Ray on his position, just make him feel like he was standing on a strange, blurry line somewhere between real life and fantasy. Julie knew that. “Fine,” she relented after a moment of silence and prolonged pointed eye contact. 


	2. There's one thing about me that you should know

Ray Molina liked to visit his wife’s grave when he was overwhelmed. Or, he didn’t necessarily like it, but the feeling of her presence, whether it was really there or not _because ghosts were a thing that existed_ wasn’t really relevant. The air was neither cold nor warm and the grass was soft underfoot, there were worn headstones lined up in neat rows, all different sizes, different ages, different epitaphs. Different lives. He could follow the passage of time as he walked through the graveyard, feeling the familiar but somewhat changed feeling he was both alone and in very good company. He wondered if there were ghosts there, milling around their own graves or visiting those of family and friends. The boys mentioned unfinished business and crossing over so he supposed that lots of people, probably most people, didn’t become ghosts when they died. He wondered if Rose had.

The old graves were closest to the gates he entered from, starting in the 1920s. They progressed slowly into modernity, empty space at the back of the site that would be filled with new graves in years to come. He didn’t even look at the old graves as he passed them, he knew they were all too worn and weathered to read and nobody ever left flowers or mementos anymore. He wondered how long it had been since some of these people had even been mentioned in passing, how long it had taken them to be forgotten. His eyes started scanning as he walked further in, planning on changing the flowers at his grandmother and grandfather’s graves.

His grandfather had died in ‘87 and his grandmother had lived for seven years until it was her time too. Every now and then there was a break in chronology where someone had reserved the specific plot next to a late loved one. His grandmother’s headstone was a little out of place: Barbara Dickens, 1911-1987; Julian Crowe, 1932-1987; William Stewart, 1970-1987, Víctor Molina, 1907-1987; María Molina 1913-1994; Peter Johnson, 1947-1988.

He placed a fresh bouquet on each grave and spoke briefly to the air they may or may not be occupying before continuing further into the graveyard. He passed a headstone from 1995 and wondered for a moment if he’d be able to find the band’s graves here or if they were buried elsewhere or if they were ashes in urns in their parents’ living rooms. Shaking his head, he continued past the row. It felt a little invasive to go looking and the odds of them being there seemed slim. _Still,_ he reminded himself, _they lived and died not far from here_. Still, he beelined for Rose’s grave.

All of the graves from 2019 were legible and treated with reverence by loved ones who left flowers and gifts regularly, that wound still fresh. There was always at least one other person there, standing or sitting by the headstone with tears in their eyes or dry cheeks and bittersweet smiles. There was a young mother, cradling a toddler in her arms, kneeling in the mud and crying two graves down. They were both in December 2019 but the ‘25th’ he saw on the stone when he peeked over made his heart ache for her. The blonde woman looked up at him as he approached.

“My husband,” she tilted her head to the grave. Her blonde ponytail fell over her shoulder. Her eyes were red and there was blood right under the skin of her lower lip, like she had been biting it and it was about ready to bleed.

Ray gave her a knowing look, “My wife,” He picked up the old flowers on Rose’s grave, just slightly browning, and put them into the plastic bag of dead flowers he was carrying. He replaced them with new flowers: dahlias and roses. That was all they said to each other but he could hear the woman’s voice shaking as she spoke to her husband and he spoke to Rose and his heart went out to her. He wondered if her husband was there, harbouring unfinished business having died so young, listening to every word and watching his son grow up.

“Cariña,” he looked at the grave tenderly, imagining that he was seeing his wife’s face before it had been consumed by persistent terminal disease looking back at him instead of the unloving stone. And he told her the whole story the band and Julie had told him, sticking to Spanish so the young woman who could definitely hear him speaking wouldn’t think he was crazy. Maybe he was. But Rose, whether or not she could hear him, wouldn’t judge him for it.

When he got up the blonde woman was still unmoving, her back to him. He sent her an encouraging smile anyway, hoping that she’d sense it even if she couldn’t see it.

On his way out, Ray passed the 90s and paused again. He doubted the boys had followed him since Flynn had ambushed them and Julie that morning, demanding answers and planning on taking full advantage of her sudden ability to converse with the ghosts without Julie as a buffer or Luke’s handwriting as an obstacle. He also hoped they respected his privacy enough to not follow him. It wasn’t like he had to tell them if he just had a look and what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. He sidestepped so he was amongst their death year.

He found Reggie’s grave first. The flowers were brown and weathered but they were there, alongside a carefully folded leather jacket and a little box Ray didn’t dare open. He didn’t know any of the boy’s surnames but any possible doubt that this Reginald Peters who had died on the 22nd of June, 1995, was the same Reggie who played in her daughter’s band was quickly crushed when he saw what was propped against the headstone. He bent down to get a closer look at the faded cover of the CD. A _Sunset Curve_ CD featuring the same lively photograph as the article had. The etipath seemed vague and slightly impersonal but someone had cared enough to pay to have it engraved.

Luke’s was right next to his. The flowers were fresh and there was a photograph propped up next to the CD that matched Reggie’s. There was a sharpie heart around the tiny image of Lukas Patterson’s face on the cover, claiming him. The photograph was one of a little boy, missing one of his front teeth and grinning as he held what Ray assumed was his first guitar. There was wrapping paper piled on the floor next to him and he was wearing dinosaur-themed pyjamas. There was a box on this grave too that Ray wasn’t willing to open, already feeling strange being there, standing somewhere on top of the dead body of a boy he had met the day before. It was a weird, uncomfortable reminder that the boys he knew weren’t flesh and blood. There was a little sealed glass box of guitar picks in a variety of colours and an incredibly personal headstone that honoured Luke for what he was, not just what he was to other people, as Reggie’s had.

When Ray first glanced at the plot next to Luke’s he had thought it was empty, being reserved for a not-yet-dead loved one who wanted to be returned to him. But then he looked properly and saw that it was in fact occupied. There wasn’t really a headstone, just a small plaque like the one that most people used to fill the space until their engraved headstones were ready. Ray knew it didn’t take 25 years to get one. Occasionally they’d be used by people who couldn’t afford the other options but those were always treated with the utmost reverence. There was no sentiment attached to the grave, just _Alexander Mercer, 1978-1995_ and nothing more. Like nobody had cared. He saw red and walked away with red hot tears stinging at his eyes. He didn’t know why Alex’s grave was so neglected but he really doubted the teenager deserved it. He wondered if he’d even been afforded a funeral or if his family had just spent the bare minimum on getting him the plaque and a casket and the plot, leaving him there without ceremony or grief or guilt.

He decided quickly he wasn’t going to tell the boy’s about their graves. He couldn’t pretend to have seen one and not the others and Alex already seemed so on edge and anxious about everything that forcing him to confront that no effort had been made towards his memory just seemed cruel.

He was in his car, waiting for traffic to move and still seething, when he remembered what Luke had said to Alex the night before. He had lived in California for five years but only in “that house” for four and that was something Luke seemed to regard negatively. He had assumed the day before that Luke had just meant that Alex’s family had moved within the state but the new context was making him doubt that. He had questions: had Alex run away? Or been kicked out? Why? And how was Ray going to kill his parents?

* * *

  
  
  


When Ray got home he stood by his car for a moment too long, just staring up at his home that had felt so empty and haunted since Rose had died, suddenly not so empty and, somehow, feeling less haunted. He breathed deeply and tried to think of how he’d look at the ghosts without telling Reggie he seemed pretty forgotten and Alex that nobody had bothered to remember him in the first place.

He nodded to himself and went inside, thumbing his phone in his pocket and scanning the ground floor for any signs of life. Or afterlife. It seemed empty enough so he listened intently to see if he could hear the band playing in the studio. There seemed to be relative silence. He had one more guess as to where they could all be.

He noticed that Julie’s bedroom door was ajar and there were voices fluttering out of it, seemingly all much calmer than they had been in the morning. He knocked on the doorframe and poked his head around the door. Carlos was sitting on Julie’s bed, talking to an empty space where the sheets wrinkled. Julie sat on the ottoman at the end of her bed, box of nail varnishes sitting by her side, Flynn on the floor with her back against the same piece of furniture. Alex was the only ghost he could see, Julie was holding his left hand and painting his nails baby pink to match his shirt. Ray wondered if he’d been a willing participant or if Julie had asked and he’d just said yes because it was the easiest answer. Alex seemed like the sort of person who would do that.

“Hey Ray!” Reggie’s voice chimed from besides Carlos. He supposed Luke was also invisible somewhere else in the room.

“Hola Reggie,” he was trying not to meet Alex’s eyes as they were the only ghostly pair he could see. “Are you all okay up here?” he got a series of nods and verbal responses, “Does anyone want a snack?” he asked the living in the room and Carlos jumped at the opportunity to eat one of the store-bought sugar cookies in their cupboard, he promised he'd bring one up and some toast for Julie and Flynn and didn’t even catch the wistful look in Alex’s eye when he’d heard the word “cookie” come from Carlos’ mouth. “That colour suits you,” He told Alex before he left, determined not to ignore the ghost in the room. Alex’s shoulders tensed as he analysed Ray’s tone but when he found no undertone of sarcasm or disapproval like he would get from his parents when he wore the pink clothes that always just so happened to end up in his bag after band practice, he smiled and thanked Julie’s dad. Ray didn’t miss the pause.

A familiar voice spoke up somewhere behind Ray as he was walking down the stairs and he very nearly fell down them. “Hi, Reggie,” He responded as he tried to focus on getting his feet to do what they were supposed to. There was a boy standing behind him, talking to him, a boy whose grave he had just seen, and he was going to be fine with that.

“Are you okay?” He was surprised to hear Reggie ask him. There was a moment when Ray didn’t answer and Reggie was racing to fill it before it could really be considered a silence, never one for lulls in conversations, scared of what would fill them. “I just mean, I know you went to the graveyard earlier and that must be hard, and you’ve seemed off since you came back and I think that’s probably a side-effect of the whole having to re-adjust how you think of death because ghosts exist thing,” He could have said more if Ray didn’t but he’d managed to find the words he was looking for.

“It _is_ weird,” He said slowly, “Adjusting to the whole ghost thing, but I’ll get used to it and it’s not your fault,” Not a lie. Ray had a policy of not outright lying to his children (and at some point that day he had decided that Alex and Reggie could probably benefit from having their own parents replaced), but keeping something from them for their own wellbeing wasn’t against it. Reggie made a face like he was used to exactly that--people holding things against him--and Ray made a mental note of it but didn’t mention it. “But I’ll be fine,” he stressed, “How have you guys been today? I see Flynn stopped freaking out,”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Flynn had shown up at the Molinas’ door early that morning, ringing their doorbell with a sort of urgency that Ray, with the events of the previous day fresh in his mind, could entirely understand. He shoved his feet into his slippers and headed downstairs to answer the door but Julie had just beat him to it, still wearing her own pyjamas.

Flynn stood there, phone extended out in front of her with purpose, showing Julie the number of texts Flynn had sent the night before but Julie hadn’t read because she had been explaining the ghosts to her father and then sleeping like she was as dead as her friends. Julie had mentioned that she thought her dad could hear the ghosts and then proceeded to ghost Flynn for hours and the girl wasn’t exactly happy about it.

Flynn looked both incredibly tired and the most awake a person had ever been, probably being fueled with copious amounts of caffeine and sugar instead of quality sleep, and nothing she was wearing made sense as an outfit. Her padlock necklace was still around her neck, moving slightly as she breathed heavily--because of course she had ran to Julie’s house--but her hands were unadorned, no rings in sight.

“Julie,” she sounded both desperate and excited, “what’s happening?!” and then she spotted Ray and started sputtering in an attempt to come up with something that wouldn’t sound suspicious. She wasn’t generally very proficient in that skill.

Julie looked over her shoulder, following Flynn’s eyes. “He knows,” she shrugged, feigning nonchalance that she wasn’t feeling.

“He what?!” so Julie had to regale Flynn with the story of how she told Ray the story. All of this repetition was getting a bit exhausting.

“So…” Flynn said slyly after a beat of silence where she tried to come to terms with everything, “I finally get to meet the cute ghost band officially?” Julie shook her head, amused, and led Flynn towards the studio. Ray quickly told her about his plans for the morning before she left and headed back upstairs to get dressed.

The mention of the graveyard had made Julie shudder slightly. She really didn’t like to think of her friend’s bodies, six feet under and 25 years decomposed.

The guys were all draped over the old fabric sofa in the studio when Flynn and Julie walked in and only Julie could see them at first but Flynn could hear them. _Holy shit she could hear them_. It didn’t sound like the most fun conversation to ever happen but even hearing two voices try to comfort one other, talking about whether or not it was safe to find someone and how to go about it, couldn’t erase the elation Flynn felt.

“Um, hi,” Alex said, looking up, face a bit red at having been overheard talking about Willie by someone who didn’t know about the whole depths of the ghost business.

“Which one was that?” Flynn whispered to Julie, trying to be subtle and not necessarily succeeding. Julie and the ghosts laughed.

“Alex,” Julie responded, using the same obvious whisper.

“Right,” Flynn nodded, “Cute, blond drummer boy,”

“Who can hear you right now,” Alex reminded her. It was Flynn’s turn to blush a little but she shook off the embarrassment just about as quickly as she had acquired it.

Julie marched amongst the boys and, with all the coordination of people who had been friends for a lifetime and not a few months, joined hands with Alex and Reggie as Luke wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind her. Julie went slightly red and everyone gave her and Luke _that_ look. Julie pretended she didn’t see it and cleared her throat. “Flynn, meet the phantoms!”

“Huh,” was the first thing Flynn said. She trailed her eyes over the boys. “You’re taller than I thought you’d be,” she told Alex, he shrugged and buried his free hand in the front pocket of his hoodie. “And you,” she pointed at Luke, “Always seemed taller,” and suddenly he was indignant and everyone else was laughing.

“So…” Flynn said after a while, “Who were you guys talking about before I walked in?” Julie, Luke and Reggie were sitting on the sofa and Alex and Flynn were content enough on the floor, Alex’s back against Julie’s legs. Alex went bright red and started tapping a rhythm out on his knees so Flynn immediately knew this was a story she was going to like hearing,

“Willie,” Reggie said, looking at Alex exactly how he had looked at Julie and Luke earlier. He said the name like it was supposed to mean a thing to Flynn.

“And that is…?” she asked, the crimson creeping up Alex’s neck giving her a pretty good hint.

“Alex’s ghost boyfriend,” Luke said quickly and Alex got somehow redder.

“He’s not my _boyfriend!”_ Alex defended and Flynn giggled behind her hand, very much enjoying watching the band interact.

“But you’d very much like him to be,” Reggie raised his eyebrows and Alex opened his mouth to defend himself. He ended up stumbling uselessly over meaningless syllables instead and Flynn was laughing harder.

“It’s so obvious that you both like each other!” Julie told him. Alex twisted his torso around to look at her.

“You’ve never even met him!”

“He didn’t deny it!” Reggie chimed in before Alex had the chance to.

“Ugggghhh,” Alex’s head found its way into his hands and Flynn was full-on cackling by that point, “I give up,” Flynn noticed the rainbow bracelet on his wrist, just barely peeking out from underneath the cuff of his sleeve.

“We match!” she told him, still very much feeling her sodas and presenting him with her own hand as he looked up. He took in the colours of the bi flag worn around her wrist and smiled softly at her. Julie carded her right hand through Luke’s hair and Luke was rubbing his thumb over the knuckles of her right hand and Flynn really wanted to tell them that they were a couple already but they somehow seemed to be the only ones who hadn’t noticed. It seemed a bit hypocritical that they were making fun of Alex’s crush.

About an hour later Carlos came running to the studio, having been woken up by a mixture of the orange sunlight filtering in through his window and the noise of the band playing for Flynn. The ghost news was still fresh in his brain and Reggie was still very happy to listen to him talk about all the games and movies (all age appropriate, of course) that Reggie had missed in the quarter century he had spent in limbo. About ten minutes after Carlos joined them they decided to migrate to Julie’s room.

Once they were there Julie kept her eyes fixed on her dream box, looking between the boys, specifically Luke, in warning for about five minutes. When the only move towards it Luke had made in that time had earned him a quick rap on the knuckles with a drumstick Alex poofed into his hand, Julie decided that they could be trusted to police themselves. She let go of their hands and Flynn shivered involuntarily as she watched their faces fade away.

Their voices still filled the room but Flynn got this odd feeling that they weren’t coming from anywhere in particular, they were just filling the space. She went to sit on the bed and was interrupted by Reggie and Julie telling her that she was about to sit on Reggie and that was going to feel bad for everyone involved. She nodded, moved away and apologised.

“It’s fine,” Reggie told her. She could imagine him waving his hands dismissively (and a bit too quickly), buzzing with energy. “It’s not your fault; you can’t see me,”

“I wish I couldn’t see you,” Said a quieter voice.

“Alex,” Julie chided him, giggling as she did and subsequently removing any of the disappointed mum vobes she might have been aiming for.

` Flynn didn’t really have much of a concept of what was an appropriate thing to do with ghosts. She couldn’t talk to Julie about how dating a dead boy was a bad idea when the boy was in the room, she couldn’t touch the ghosts and she figured Julie wouldn’t be too pleased if Flynn did something _too_ embarrassing in front of Carlos who would unquestionably tease her for it. Eventually she noticed the chipped nail varnish on Julie’s nails and offered to repaint them. Julie nodded and then turned to where the boys were (if Flynn had to guess she’d say Reggie was the one who was floating mundane objects in front of a wide-eyed Carlos) and asked if any of them wanted her to paint theirs. Alex must have nodded because Flynn didn’t hear anything but Julie responded, bright-eyed and grinning.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Flynn ended up staying for dinner so they had takeout instead of leftovers. Ray looked at the ghosts as the lifers discussed food, looking apologetic as they crowded around Julie and read the menu over her shoulders, feeling phantom pangs in the stomachs they didn’t have. He decided that even if he couldn’t feed them he would do what he felt inclined to do for Rose: lay out a place setting for them. It might be a tight squeeze but he was going to do it, he doubted their families did.

They settled on Chinese food and Ray asked Julie to come with him to pick it up. Wordlessly, everyone knew that meant he needed to talk to her so Flynn and Carlos didn’t protest. “Flynn will stay here with you,” Ray told Carlos who smiled toothily and reminded Ray that the ghosts would too. Ray nodded, looking to where he assumed the boys were and rocking back and forth between his heels and toes as if he’d been watching Alex a little too closely. Julie watched Reggie wave even though Ray couldn’t see him and looked fondly at her band before leaving the house.

As Flynn heard the Molinas’ car drive away the ghost’s voices fizzled out the same way their appearances did when Julie stepped away from them.

“Right,” Flynn clicked her fingers and made subtle finger guns at the wall she was facing, “Can’t hear the ghosts without Julie, good to know,” There was some fumbling in the room as a pad of paper moved on its own from a countertop to the table Flynn was standing next to. A line of scrawl appeared gradually on the page in dark blue ink and Flynn squinted, trying to read it, struggling to differentiate one letter from the next. There was a sudden jolt that she interpreted as one ghost taking the pen off of the one with bad handwriting forcefully, Next came the curving script, tiny on the page but perfectly understandable with each letter joining elegantly to the next.

_Sorry about Luke’s handwriting_ it said and Flynn could vividly imagine Luke sulking in the corner. If she had to guess, Alex was holding the pen now. _You can’t hear us anymore, right? Julie needs to be here?_ The questions all but confirmed her suspicions about who was writing.

The writing was in a different hand all of a sudden, much less neat than Alex’s, a bit blocky and uneven, occasionally floating above or dipping below the line but always perfectly legible. _Is Julie a witch?_ Flynn didn’t answer that one, she had a feeling Alex was already on it. Carlos wandered over and tried to read what was written on the page sideways.

“So I guess this is how we have to communicate when Julie isn’t here… interesting. And Luke, please get someone else to write for you, I managed to decipher about 3 letters of that,” She could practically see him scowling and sulking in a corner.

Flynn could tell when Julie and her dad were back in the driveway because suddenly she could hear more than just Carlos reading aloud and Alex’s pen scratching quickly across the paper. There was an argument of sorts happenings between Luke and Reggie and the moment she mentioned it to Alex he put down the pen mid-word and started speaking to her properly, finding verbal communication much more efficient than written.

Flynn heard the front door fall shut and smelled the food before she saw Julie and Ray but it wasn’t long before they were there, presenting the food. Julie put down what she was holding on the table and leaned over Flynn, taking in the mess of ink on the page. “Interesting,” She noted mostly to herself as she watched Alex making crude scribbles in the margin.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Flynn had to babysit her brothers so she couldn’t spend the night and without her there the household lapsed into a comparative quiet that only deepened when the lifers went to sleep. Alex looked around the studio for distraction in the form of his bandmates, chewing more on his fingertips than his nails, but Luke was sitting on the piano bench, poring over his songwriting notebook, making the occasional annotation or note in the same handwriting they had always joked made their songs theft-proof. They hadn’t made that joke in a while. Reggie was sitting in front of the laptop Ray had lent him, watching some film Alex didn’t recognise on a low volume with white subtitles dancing along the bottom of the screen. He was completely transfixed.

“I’m going out,” Alex said more to himself than anyone else and poofed out of the room into the chilled air of the night. He wasn’t wearing his hoodie and his Pansy Division t-shirt left his arms bare but he couldn’t feel the cold against them. Maybe once he would have appreciated the lack of unpleasantness but in that moment his brain took any moments of appreciation and turned them into a deep existential dread that settled in the bottom of the stomach he no longer had and gave the butterflies something to land on.

He had only meant to wander aimlessly through Hollywood, people-watching and trying to remind himself that he certainly wasn’t the weirdest being walking those streets. His feet had other plans and before he even realised it he was standing in front of the dark façade of a familiar museum. He tightened his fists in his pockets and felt something like a quickening heartbeat. He took his right hand from his pocket and laid it on his chest but couldn’t feel anything externally. He shook his head and walked through the door, trying not to get his hopes up.

He wanted more than anything to scream and scream until he felt hoarse if he even could anymore, but he couldn’t stop his traitorous feet from taking him on a meandering walk, weaving between the exhibits and wandering up the stairs. The only other soul, living or dead, was the half asleep security guard who was cradling a large black coffee that had become lukewarm. There was no skater ghost there so Alex cursed to himself and settled for the next best thing. He settled himself on the bench that Willie had taught him to move what felt like a lifetime ago, noting humourlessly that nobody had moved it back, and screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that angst that I see? Perhaps...  
> Chapter title is from "Daft Pretty Boys" by Bad Suns
> 
> This chapter is up so soon because I don't like seeing the "chapters 1/?" thing so...


	3. Try to make our moment last

When Alex wandered into the kitchen he found Ray already standing there, staring at a hand-curated recipe book with glassy eyes. He hovered behind the man who couldn’t see him for a moment, looking at the page over his shoulder. It was a bread recipe, pretty plain and simple, the shiny page clearly cut by hand from another recipe book and hole-punched for the ring-binding of the folder. There were a few annotations made on the page in an opaque red marker and Alex’s heart stung because everything about it looked like the recipe book his mother had kept on the shelf in his own kitchen, all the way down to the spidery, cursive writing. He stepped away from Ray and acted as though he was walking into the room for the first time, saying a polite greeting as he did.

“Good morning, Mr. Molina,”

Ray started when he heard Alex’s voice, not entirely sure whether that was because he had been zoned out or just wasn’t used to the ghosts yet. He winced a moment later, processing the formality of the greeting, both because the other ghosts had taken to calling him by his first name immediately and because “Mr. Molina” made him feel incredibly old.

“You can call me Ray,” He corrected the boy, stepping away from the counter and Rose’s recipes. He couldn’t see Alex but he just knew he was opening his mouth to apologise with probably too much conviction. “And you don’t have to apologise, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Alex froze for a moment and his eyes flicked back to the recipe book for a moment. The juxtaposition between that being so familiar and Ray’s demeanour being so detached from what he was used to threw him off for a moment. Almost fittingly, he felt both unsettled and incredibly welcomed at the same time.

“So what are you doing in the kitchen?” Ray looked to the space where he guessed Alex was and Alex shuffled over there to make the conversation slightly less uncomfortable, “Julie told me about Luke staring wistfully into the fridge and Reggie’s best attempts to talk my ear off when I couldn’t hear him but she never mentioned you coming in here often,”

Alex shook his head, “I don’t,” Ray heard him sigh, “But I baked a lot when I was alive,” he didn’t mention the year before his death when he didn’t really have access to a kitchen to bake in, “and now that you know that we exist I figured I could finally stress bake some more bread,”

“Stress baking?” Ray repeated, trying to look back to the recipe he had been looking at cluelessly. “I feel like baking is more stress-inducing than stress-relieving,”

Alex shook his head before realising that Ray couldn’t see it, “Not really, bread-making is basically just an excuse to beat the shit out of some dough,”

Ray remembered Rose baking, telling him that the reason why he was never good at it was his lack of love for the process. “But lovingly, right?”

Alex smiled softly, “Yeah, lovingly,”

“Well,” Ray clapped his hands, “You’re in luck: I’ve finally managed to convince Victoria to come over again since you guys haunted her-”

“Please don’t hold that against me, I promise you that was a very Reggie idea and I had no part in it,”

Ray chuckled, “Noted. I promised I’d make dinner and I  _ can  _ cook but something  _ possessed  _ me to promise to bake one of Rose’s recipes,” immediately upon hearing the name Alex remembered the girl who had been working at the Orpheum. He assumed it was a coincidence but made a mental note of it just in case. “And I’ve never managed to bake anything that looked edible,”

It was Alex’s turn to laugh. “If you have the ingredients I can do you one better and we can make two? Bread to go with the meal and a cake or something for dessert?”

“Remind me to tell Julie you’re my favourite, mijo,” Ray wasn’t necessarily thinking about what he was saying, it just felt natural and the image of that stark plaque was engraved on the insides of his eyelids. Alex heard the word and froze. Had Ray really just called him his son? Alex had spent the past couple of days reminding himself that he shouldn’t be seeing Ray as a father figure, that he was Julie’s dad, not his, and all of a sudden it seemed like that argument had fallen to pieces. He gulped and tried to regain what composure he had had.

“Can I see the recipe?” He choked out, crossing his arms in front of his chest and drumming his fingers on his elbows. Ray picked up the folder and held it out in front of him until Alex took it gingerly and Ray had to try to look like he wasn’t the least bit taken aback by the floating folder. The page with the bread didn’t quite close entirely and Ray could imagine Alex had tucked a finger between the pages so he didn’t lose it whilst looking through the cake recipes. Ray stopped him when he saw the panetela de guayaba recipe that he knew Victoria loved and that he hadn’t eaten since Rose had last made it, months before she had died. He didn’t suppose it was a recipe that Alex would have made before but he did think that Victoria would be grateful.

Alex eyed the recipe and he was pretty sure they’d be able to make it but the stomach he didn’t have ached at a missed opportunity to try new foods. The last new flavour he had experienced hadn’t been a pleasant one and dwelling on that memory made his entire soul feel like it was burning and he was dying all over again. He tried not to groan and worry Ray until it had lapsed and once he was sure it was gone he replaced the book on the counter, silently congratulating himself on his improved ghost skills and trying not to dwell on who had taught him. “Do we have everything?” He asked Ray, slipping a piece of paper towel between the pages so he’d be able to find the recipe again easily whilst the bread was proving. Ray responded in the affirmative so they got started with the bread.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Victoria was early to their planned dinner. Ray should have been expecting it really: she was early to everything and she seemed to either show up without warning or fail to show up at all. He supposed he’d just assumed that her Reggie-induced fear of the house might have made her apprehensive and she wouldn’t have chosen to spend any more time than was necessary there. No such luck.

He had been upstairs in his room changing when he heard a shrill scream that was unmistakably Victoria’s, followed by a muffled expletive that he could safely assume was Alex. Alex, who he had asked to knock back the dough and shape it for its second proof. Ray muttered his own expletive and ran down the stairs, top three buttons of his shirt undone as a result of the interruption and not a style choice.

“Ray,” Victoria’s voice was shrill and panicked and Ray winced. He noticed the dough, looking very much like it had been hastily dropped back into the bowl it had been proving in. “Please explain to me why I walked into your house-- _ which you promised me was completamente segura-- _ and saw dough  _ floating _ !”

“I can explain,” he tried to move his hands slowly as if that was going to be at all effective at calming her. He turned towards the stairs, stopping halfway to look at where he assumed Alex was standing, fidgeting nervously in front of the dough and expecting Ray to blame him for something that absolutely wasn’t his fault, and sent him a look that he hoped communicated  _ something  _ wordlessly. “Julie!” He called as loudly as he was able, hoping to be heard over the lofi music she always played through her headphones when she was doing homework like the project Ray had insisted she spend the day on, “I know we weren’t planning on telling your tίa but there’s been a change of plans!”

It was only a moment before Julie was thundering down the stairs not dissimilarly to how Ray had, almost tripping over her oversized monster paw slippers as she went. She saw Alex standing in the kitchen, looking slightly green and picking almost excessively at the skin beside his nails. She could imagine with all the drumming and the fidgeting that he was probably the sort of person who always had plasters on his hands when he was alive. Then she saw the dough that, though she didn’t know Alex could bake, she sincerely doubted her father was solely responsible for, based on past experiences. She pieced together the scene quickly enough.

“Dammit,” she muttered under her breath before looking over her shoulder at her dad, “Is it seriously time for explanation part three already?”

Ray nodded then looked over to the empty space he could only assume Alex was still occupying pointedly, “And that’s entirely my fault, sorry mijos,” Victoria might have caught the last word were she not so focused on staring at the smooth surface of the bread dough as though it was about to reach out and grab her. Alex, however, was stuck on it. It basically confirmed that what Ray had said earlier hadn’t been a one off accident or force of habit and suddenly, after 26 years (that felt like one and a half) he had a father figure again. And one that wasn’t using every available opportunity to shirk blame away from himself or expecting constant niceties. It was striking and suddenly Alex found himself confronting the idea that he had maybe been subconsciously harbouring for a while, that even before they had found out that he was gay, his parents had never really been good at their job.

Julie was getting a bit tired of explaining the ghosts and maybe the idea of that conversation becoming mundane might make her laugh were she not currently faced with her friend ripping the skin off of his hands and her aunt looking, quite understandably, as though she had just seen a ghost. She figured it might be killing two birds with one stone if she were to place her hands over Alex’s so she made Victoria promise (with very little conviction) not to freak out and did exactly that.

Julie was certain that if she were to touch the hands of a living person whose hands were as red as Alex had made his, they would be burning hot but they were that same dead cold as always and it almost wasn’t unnerving anymore. Victoria, predictably, freaked out as the blond teenager flickered into view in the kitchen but, after a moment, she didn’t miss how Julie and Ray seemed to be putting a lot of effort into calming him down rather than freaking out themselves.

“So your house  _ is _ haunted,” she looked at Ray accusingly and tried to pretend she wasn’t shaking like a chihuahua that had fallen into a cold pool.

“Pero ‘completamente segura’” he tried sheepishly.

“So... what, you’ve just got a dead teenager staying in your house?” She was trying very hard not to sound hysterical with very little success.

Ray looked over to Alex who seemed very much on edge still but at least a little bit calmer. “You can carry on with the bread if you want to mijo,” he told him and Alex nodded stiffly before cutting off a chunk of the dough and shaping the rest. Julie kept a hand on his back in an attempt to keep him from completely freaking out and also so it didn’t look so strange to Victoria who definitely hadn’t missed how Ray addressed the boy this time around. Ray turned back to his sister in law and winced slightly, “Not quite,” he told her before calling the other ghosts’ names into the air and hoping by some miracle that they would hear them. It seemed like they must have because a moment later he heard Reggie’s voice.

“Hey Ray, what-” then a pause “oh…”

Victoria blinked and tried not to look at the visible ghost who was deftly braiding the dough he had split from the main shape. If he wasn’t dead she might have been impressed instead of incredibly disturbed. “Right,” she was speaking slowly in an attempt to seem calm but it only highlighted the way her voice was shaking, “You have three dead teenagers living in your house,”

Before Ray got the chance to respond Luke did. “Well we aren’t really  _ living  _ anywhere,”

Ray chuckled slightly as Julie looked past Alex to where Luke must have been. If looks could kill the guitarist would certainly have died again. “Not the time, Luke,”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Julie’s first day back at school since the Orpheum performance was rather jarring. Almost every person she passed in the hallway, including students she had never once spoken to before and teachers she had never had a lesson with, congratulated her or complimented her. There were lots of questions about the band, especially meeting them eventually, that made her heart drop as she fumbled for excuses as to why that couldn’t happen. Perhaps she could bring them into the school and make them visible but there was nothing she could do to make them tangible and that just seemed like an incident waiting to happen. Knowing that the guys weren’t going to show up at the school unannounced because the only one who could speak without being heard by everyone was also the only one with common sense (or maybe not so much common sense as stifling anxiety, but Julie would take what she could get), was giving her at least a little bit of comfort. Flynn’s insistence at spending the day glued to her side also wasn’t hurting.

The most awkward part of her day, however, was probably Nick’s sudden shift in character and Carrie’s weirdness. Julie thought it was slightly unfortunate that she had lost her crush on the blond boy right as he had developed a crush on her but she wasn’t dwelling on that so much as she was the glassy look in his eyes that she hadn’t seen him without all day. There was something about the way he was moving, that made it seem as though his limbs were the wrong size and he was acting strangely too, as though he was an actor playing the role of himself. She didn’t know if something was genuinely wrong or if he was just weird around people he was crushing on but it made her incredibly uneasy.

Carrie, for a change, wasn’t going out of her way to insult Julie and Flynn, she wasn’t taunting them, and she had even complimented Julie on the show  _ and  _ sounded genuine about it. But every time Julie looked at her she either caught Carrie staring back or tearing her eyes away. There was something about her wide-eyed stare, like she was trying to figure out where one tiny piece could possibly fit in the 1,000 piece puzzle she had just begun to put together. Julie wondered what she knew, whether her knowledge had any substance, if her dad had seen anything and put something together himself.

Julie could have been doing a worse job at avoiding Nick but it seemed like her luck escaped her at the worst possible time. She was sitting in her history lesson, only half listening as her teacher told them about the Cold War and all of the names blurred into a mush of indecipherable syllables in Julie’s head. Then her teacher mentioned a partner project and she looked across the room to Flynn who grinned back until the teacher said that she would be assigning partners and Flynn’s face fell quickly. Of course Julie was assigned partners with the boy she had spent the day trying to avoid. Nick smiled at her and Julie smiled back but there was something about the way his lips quirked and his face distorted that made her shiver as goosebumps appeared on her arms.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Nick didn’t really know what was happening or who was doing this to him but he knew he was feeling an intense, searing pain whilst also not being able to feel his body at all. He could tell his limbs were moving and his lips were moving and whoever had stolen his agency kept forgetting to blink, but he knew that his body wasn’t  _ him  _ anymore. There was somebody else in charge and he was trapped in his brain, calling out and screaming and shouting for nobody but the unempathetic being occupying the parts of it that mattered to hear. Desperately he struggled against the strange cerebral bindings, watching through the eyes that weren’t his own anymore as the invader smiled at Julie before disappearing to the infrequently used bathroom at the back of the school to celebrate his own luck.

There was something incredibly sinister about the presence but no matter how much Nick pushed against it and tried to resist its pull it would not budge. Nick didn’t even know for sure that it could feel his resistance until he was staring at himself in the grungy bathroom mirror and the eyes that looked at him as though they could quite literally see his soul were too dark and too angry to ever be his own. He wished he had a body that he could use to run away but instead he just shrank back away from the wall of the presence in his brain until there was a voice speaking somewhere next to him.

“There you go,” it said, deep and smooth. It was like a sun-warmed lake surrounding Nick on all sides, hot enough to be uncomfortable but not hot enough to burn the skin that he didn’t think he had anymore. “Don’t fight this Nicholas,” his face smiled in the mirror, twisted and aged, “You can’t win,” 

Nick hadn’t been aware of his own exhaustion until he stopped resisting for a moment and then he found himself without the ability to reinitiate his efforts. He wasn’t sure how much of it was fatigue and how much of it was his motivation being stolen by the cold hands that both weren’t his own and were, but even as he thought back to Julie’s forced smile, he couldn’t bring himself to fight for her. If things went how the presence was clearly planning for them to go he didn’t know that he’d ever forgive himself but he was just so helpless and so tired.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Julie had been doing an okay job at avoiding Nick’s attempts to meet up with her after school for the past couple of days, shooting down his offers with flimsy excuses, but she didn’t think they were going to hold for much longer. So when Flynn eagerly told her about the band’s first performance since the Orpheum she was glad to have an excuse that actually held water, even though she knew it was only temporary and she couldn’t avoid the project forever. It was only a local thing, Flynn had told her, at this trendy restaurant that had always seemed too expensive for Julie to justify going to, but she was scheduling important calls with important people and there were definitely more gigs in their future.

“Speaking of the band,” Flynn said, taking a sip of her soda, “How do we feel about setting them up social media accounts?” Julie guffawed. “What? Have you not seen new followers flooding your instagram account recently? Or the band’s account? I have gotten so many DMs on that account asking about whether the rest of the band has social media, surely you must have gotten some too,”

“I haven’t really looked. I’ve been a bit distracted,” Flynn groaned at her. “You know they can’t exactly take photographs right? And they’re hopeless with technology?”

“It’s what the people want, Jules,”

“Can’t we disappoint the people just this once? Please. It’s the internet, the more we put ourselves out there, the more likely it is that someone will get suspicious,”

“Well how do you ever expect to grow as a band with an attitude like that? Listen Jules, you’re starting to sound like Alex, it will be fine, people come up with all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories on the internet all the time and most people don’t believe them,”  
“But this wouldn’t be a crazy conspiracy theory Flynn! Someone is bound to get it right eventually!”

“We’re already running that risk,” Flynn took a long sip of her soda before raising her eyebrows at Julie as if challenging her to keep arguing. “And to the rest of the world it would just be another conspiracy theory,”

Julie really wanted to argue but she wasn’t really sure what else to say. “FIne,” she conceded eventually, popping a grape into her mouth and chewing slowly, “But you’re the one helping them; I want no part in that doomed endeavour,”

“It can’t be  _ that  _ bad,”

“I want to see if that opinion lasts once you’ve started trying to help them. Trust me, the jump from 1995 technology to 2020 technology isn’t one they have adapted to all that smoothly… actually I don’t think they managed all that well with 90’s tech either--Reggie tried to fix an amp in the rain once,”

“I am already regretting this decision,”

“As you should be,” Julie smiled sweetly.

Flynn went back to Julie’s house after school that day, flinging open the studio door and greeting the ghosts with unnecessary grandeur. Luke and Reggie halted their conversation sharply and Julie walked in behind her a moment later. Julie scanned the room, looking over the instruments and plants and not finding the third ghost anywhere. She cast her eyes over to the stairs leading up to the loft and Luke shook his head in answer.

“Alex is gone again?” She asked the band, just to make sure, “Do you guys know where he goes?” 

“Probably still trying to find Willie,” Reggie said.

“I don’t think he’ll trust that Caleb hasn’t imprisoned him or worse until he hears it from WIllie himself,” Luke finished. Julie nodded solemnly and Flynn told them about the social media plan in a half-hearted attempt to lighten the mood.

Luke and Reggie made sure that they were visible to Flynn, each leaning on one of Julie’s shoulders, as she told them about the internet’s curiosity. Reggie watched her bounce in place as she spoke with a furrowed brow, distracted by the light glancing off of her rings as she gesticulated and only understanding about half of the words leaving her mouth. “This isn’t going to end well,” He remarked and Julie nodded emphatically, “and I barely understood enough of what you said to know that,”

“What would we even post?” Luke scrunched up his nose and Julie watched him, thinking it was a cute expression and blushing slightly, vowing to never repeat the thought out loud to anyone.

“You can be seen if Julie is touching you,” Flynn remarked, “I think you could probably be photographed like that,”  
“That could work,” Luke clicked his fingers as though thinking, “if you two hadn’t told everyone that we lived in Sweden,”

“You could take photos with her out of frame,” Flynn developed her idea.

“But nowhere with signs in English,” Luke started listing, counting on his fingers, “visible place names, recognisable landmarks, anywhere Julie’s classmates might recognise…” he trailed off.

Flynn sighed. “You know what?” I think Alex is my favourite now,”

“That’s just because he’s not here to point out all the other flaws in your plan,” Luke pointed out.

“He’d definitely find more,” Reggie said surely and Flynn felt like tearing her hair out.

“I hate all of you,” she decided, then she looked between Julie and Luke, “And you two deserve each other,”

Julie laughed, trying to pretend she couldn’t feel the blush reaching her ears. “You do realise they don’t even have phones?”

“I stand by this idea,” Flynn told them, more stubborn than anything, “And I will be talking to your father about at least getting them a phone to share,”

“Need I remind you that this man,” Julie poked Reggie’s cheek, “tried to fix an amp in the rain,” she emphasised every word, making it impossible to mishear her.

“It’s a good idea!” Flynn declared before storming out of the studio. Julie suspected she’d be back mere minutes later, waving her homework around and pretending like nobody had ever challenged her.

Julie was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Pretty Lady" by Tash Sultana.
> 
> I've read quite a few fics where Alex bakes and I like that idea, mostly because I also really like to bake and I don't really have a kitchen rn (we're redoing it). I am also definitely not Puerto Rican and, though I can speak some amount of Spanish, I'm referring to google on a few things so I can't make any promises of accuracy with cultural or language things.  
> I kinda want to explain my thought process with how Alex talks to/around Ray. Basically his parents were, like, really strict and formal and Alex remembers that, but it's been so long since he was around parents and had to worry so much about his language that he's kind of forgotten to censor himself around adults


	4. It's Out of My Control

Alex was pretty sure he had canvassed most of LA in his search for Willie, crossing through neighbourhoods he hadn’t known existed and witnessing all numbers of horrors in dark alleys knowing there was little he could do to intervene but still trying his best to scare off any aggressors. He knew if he was still alive he would have probably worn holes in the soles of his trainers and his knees would be screaming at him to take a break, but he wasn’t and he wasn’t going to let mortal limitations dictate his actions. He walked the bustling streets and the desolate turns, sure that, after he had visited all the areas he knew Willie frequented a few times fruitlessly, he was following streets at random, touching every corner of the city. Yet he always seemed to end up back at the museum.

It was very different during the day, when patrons walked around, some genuinely looking at and enjoying the art, others speaking nonsense and never really looking properly, caring more about presenting themselves a certain way than actually being that way. All of the lights were on and everything was lit up bright and white and there Alex was in the middle of it, staring at his feet and the floor that the light bounced off of, uninterrupted by his presence. He never thought he’d care about his shadow. He also never thought he’d be a dead teenager standing in a museum looking for his dead crush in 2020 so realistically the lack of shadow was probably the least of his concerns. But he was still caught up on it.

It was like, with every passing day Alex got better at the whole ghost thing (and he had a certain mentor to thank) but he also became more aware that he wasn’t human anymore. He’d never experience the world the same way again and he missed it in so many ways. But the more he thought about it the more he realised that he’d miss his afterlife if suddenly he found himself alive again, back in ‘95 and about to play the Orpheum with the band he loved like family.

He was lost in thought when somebody else, seemingly equally in their own head, bumped into him. He hadn’t been expecting that after so many people in the museum passed right through him and shivered without knowing why. As the weight crashed into his shoulder Alex stumbled a little and the bench, still not returned to its original place, just so happened to be right behind him. He fell backwards onto the cold stone next to a young couple on a date and looked up. His eyes searched the sea of faces to find the ghost and he was certain that if he still had organs at least three of them would have failed when he saw the familiar shine of long, dark hair.

“Willie?” He spoke the name to the air softly, like he was scared of the outcome, that the spell would break if he spoke too loud and the other ghost wouldn’t be there. He seemed just as lost as Alex, dazed and searching until his eyes found Alex’s. There was a moment when Alex knew the world was moving around him but he didn’t feel like it was: he was there and Willie was there and there was nothing else.

Then the moment broke like a thin pane of glass under too much strain and a familiar weight came crashing into Alex. Willie’s arms were tight around him and his face was buried in the crook of Alex’s neck, hair brushing the blond boy’s jaw. There was a moment before Alex’s brain caught up but it wasn’t long before he had his arms around Willie too and his face pressed against Willie’s soft jumper.

If Luke and Reggie were to ask, Alex would vehemently deny sobbing into Willie’s shoulder and he almost apologised about it to Willie before he realised Willie was doing the exact same. Somehow, that made him cry harder, like he was back in limbo all over again.

Alex wasn’t sure how long they had been like that but even when Willie pulled back from the hug he kept his hands on Alex’s arms, right where the sleeves of his baby pink t-shirt ended, like he was scared to let go. Alex stared at his face, looking at his dark eyes and pretending they weren’t red and tear stained. He was sure he didn’t look any better.

“You’re here Hotdog,” Willie’s voice was thick but it was still so distinctly  _ his voice  _ and Alex was sure he could spend his entire afterlife listening to nothing else and he’d be happier than he ever had been. He sounded like he didn’t quite believe it.

Alex swallowed a sob. “I’m here, Caleb didn’t destroy us,” Willie winced and Alex tried to pretend he hadn’t, “and we didn’t pass over. I guess I’m here to stay for a while--you’re stuck with me,”

Willie smiled at Alex softly for a moment before his brain caught up. “But how?” he’d never know Caleb Covington to be bested by anyone, granted he’d also never known another ghost that could become visible to lifers.

Alex shook his head softly “Fuck if I know” there was a hint of incredulous laughter behind his shaking voice, “Reg thinks Julie’s a witch… again,” Willie let go of Alex’s arms and let out a bark of laughter.

“You’ve got interesting friends, Hotdog,”

“Tell me about it,” Alex rolled his eyes, “But we were, like, dying in the studio after the Orpheum show--like, it felt like we were dying all over again and I don’t know if you’ve ever had your digestive system wrecked by battery acid but I don’t recommend it,”

Willie chuckled almost bitterly, “Noted. I don’t recommend getting crushed by traffic either,”

Alex nodded “But we were dying and then Julie was there and she could touch us--like she can actually touch us now and there’s a lot of weird, new ghost shit I need to catch you up on--and Caleb’s stamp just left and we’re free now, I guess?”

Willie blinked. Slowly. “You know, I can see where Reggie was coming from with that guess,”

“Caleb hasn’t done anything to you, has he?” Alex asked, worried.

Willie shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happened to him,” He admitted “I haven’t seen him since that show, he basically just disappeared and he hasn’t been back but I don’t think he’d just leave like that,”  
“You think he’s doing something sinister?” Alex didn’t really need an answer, he felt like it went without saying, but Willie nodded anyway.

“But you’re still here,” Willie exhaled and before Alex really knew what was happening, Willie was hugging him again.

Ghosts didn’t really feel the cold. Alex and Willie both knew that, but sometimes the feeling of fabric or wind against skin felt nice and sometimes dressing appropriately for the weather was a way to feel a bit less dead to the world.

Alex was running his hands across his own bare arms as he spoke to Willie, like he wanted to be able to feel the bite in the air it seemed like the lifers around them were feeling. They had left the museum and poofed right onto the bench where they had first spoken properly, still sitting on it incredibly incorrectly. Willie noticed how Alex was moving his hands and took his own jumper off. Alex tried not to blush as he noticed Willie’s t-shirt pulling up slightly with the jumper but still turned bright red when he realised the t-shirt was cropped and he could still see a section of Willie’s midriff.

“Here,” he passed Alex the jumper with a smile and a shrug. Alex held it tentatively, noting how soft and how worn it felt in his hands and resisting a pretty embarrassing urge to lift it to his face.

“You don’t have to,” He tried to reason but he really didn’t want to give Willie the jumper back so quickly, “I can’t get cold,”  
“Me neither,” Willie shrugged, “just take it dude,” His face was pleading and Alex understood that the _in case something happens_ was implied so he nodded and put the colourful jumper on.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Alex hadn’t been expecting Flynn to be in the studio when he got back but she was there along with the rest of the band, all lazily draped over furniture or the floor as they discussed a set list for an event Alex didn’t know about.

“What’s happening?” he asked, settling himself on the floor near Flynn even though he knew she couldn’t see him. She jumped slightly.

“Warn me before you talk!” she told the air to her left. Julie pointed to her right, where Alex was, and her head span around quickly.

“How could-okay,” Alex noticed that she was still looking past him.

“Flynn got us a gig at a restaurant,” Julie told him after it seemed like nobody else had really processed his question, “we’re figuring out what we’re playing,”

Luke looked at him pointedly “Because we couldn’t practice without our drummer here,”

On most days Alex might have apologised but, in that moment, there were few things further from his mind. He stared back at Luke in silence until Luke stopped expecting a response.

“Is that a new sweater?” Julie asked him after a moment of palpable silence and Luke’s face changed very suddenly.

“Shit!” He was smiling, “That’s Willie’s sweater!”

Flynn looked to Luke, the only ghost she could see, with wide eyes. “He’s wearing Willie’s clothes now?”

Reggie was more caught up on Alex having found him and was thoroughly interrogating his friend about what had happened. The languid energy of the room had changed very suddenly.

“I’m happy for you man,” Luke said softly, clapping a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “We told you he liked you back,”

Alex blanched. “He doesn’t--why would you..? We don’t know that he likes me, how could we possibly know that?”

“Alex, you’re literally wearing his sweater,” Julie sounded like she was tired of Alex’s bullshit, and, looking back, he might have agreed were she not being so incredibly hypocritical.

“That he gave you,” Reggie reminded him, “even though you’re dead and don't get cold,”

“You’re all hopeless,” Flynn looked where she hoped the ghosts were, “And he definitely likes you,”

“But you don’t  _ know  _ that?”

“Julie,” Flynn got to her feet and cracked her knuckles, “Do you think there’s an after-afterlife? I’m asking for a friend,”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Julie’s luck at evading Nick ran out on Thursday. Honestly, she was kind of annoyed: she had figured that with the gig and the consequent band practice she could withhold any work on their project until at least Monday but Nick had cornered her right as Flynn was telling her that they sounded great and she could afford to take a day off of practice to relax. Julie hadn’t realised how tall Nick was until that moment and she felt tiny. Her brain fogged up and she couldn’t lie competently so she ended up inviting him over for a couple of hours after school after he insisted they needed to do the work.

His words weren’t abrasive and his features had always been soft but he was standing too close to her and his eyes were still glassy and Julie felt genuinely intimidated. She touched his arm gently, attempting not to seem too outwardly uneasy, and moved away a little, clutching at Flynn’s sleeve with her other hand. Nick was wearing a t-shirt so Julie briefly placed her fingers against his bare skin.

“You’re cold,” she frowned, “Do you have a sweater you could put on? Are you coming down with something?”

Nick’s face changed for a moment, the briefest flash of human emotion, and it looked scared, so scared, but then it was gone and it was twisted again. “Yeah, I have one in my locker,” He took a backwards step and Julie exhaled into the new space between them. Nick’s pale fingers lingered on the brim of his hat, a look of contempt for it pulling at the corners of his lips for the briefest moment. Julie didn’t miss it and she didn’t understand it. “So,” he tucked his thumbs through his belt loops and lifted his shoulders up to his cheeks and, after everything recently, it was almost startlingly natural-seeming to Julie, “I’ll meet you at yours later?” He didn’t really give her space to object. “Do you want me to come over straight from school or be there a bit later?”

Julie sighed, gave up on formulating flimsy excuses and grabbed what little leeway had been offered to her with greedy hands. “See you at mine at 5?” Nick nodded and walked over to his locker. He fumbled with the lock for a moment too long and, as he was pulling the jumper over his head, seemingly glad to have taken off his hat for that moment, the bell started ringing. Julie and Flynn split to go to their next classes and they were gone by the time that Nick was walking confidently in the wrong direction.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Caleb Covington was not a happy man. The feeling of the cheap fabric against his arms and the itching of his scalp beneath the hat he despised and that pressure behind his eyes, that broke just for the briefest of seconds, were not helping. He found himself in that bathroom at the back of the school again, skipping his lesson in a way that the real Nick had never done once in his life.

He ripped off the old sweater and the hat the second he was out of the oft traversed hallways and discarded them carelessly by the side of a sink. He grabbed either side of the basin, staring down at the white of the water-stained porcelain and the knuckles that he’d claimed as his own, the light freckles on the pale skin showing through and reminding Caleb that this body was not his own.

“What is wrong with you?” Caleb’s voice was low and deep, his own and not Nick’s. His down-cast eyes met their reflection and he felt the pressure behind his eyes fall backwards, waning. “She liked you,” He reminded Nick, “She liked you and you were  _ useful.  _ Trust me Nicholas, there are few worse things to be than  _ useless,  _ especially to me. You don’t want to be useless, do you?” he cocked his head at his reflection and gripped the sides of the sink tighter still. They started to crumble and the fear Caleb could feel from Nick’s small space inside his own head reassured him that the teenager had seen it for the threat it undoubtedly was.

Nick was trembling inside his own mind and trying desperately not to meet the eyes in the mirror even though he knew there was nothing he could to to look away. Caleb’s voice filled the air around him, like he was hearing it in the environment, but also rattled through the bones Nick barely remembered having once owned. He realised that, when the presence in his body was watching itself in the mirror, talking to what little was left of Nick like every word was a threat wearing a thin veil or no veil at all, he couldn’t keep up his resistance, at least not for long. It was a sure-fire way to become too exhausted to put up any fight for the rest of the day. That momentary breakthrough had given him hope he wasn’t willing to grind away against an immovable wall.

The face looking at him in the mirror snarled, like an animal and not a teenage boy, “And what was that little stunt?” Nick got the sense that there were moments in time when he would need to concede to the dictator wearing his skin as though he were Ed Gein but worse.

“It wasn’t a stunt,” he hadn’t intended for the response to sound like a challenge; he didn’t want to start fights he knew he couldn’t win. “Julie can tell something is wrong,” he really didn’t want to help the presence and he really didn’t want to damn Julie to any ill fate but there was a feeling in what he could only assume was his soul, like a knife in a fresh wound being twisted ever so slowly, and he needed more than anything to be rid of it before it consumed him. “She knows you aren’t me, even if she doesn’t realise it,”

“Are you trying to lecture me about performance?” The voice hissed. Nick felt the pain flare.

“No,” He gasped out.

“Then what, Nicholas, are you doing?”

“Trying not to get destroyed,”

The face in the mirror quirked an eyebrow. Nick had never figured out how to do that. “And you think I’ll grant you that kindness if you help me?” He didn’t wait for a response, just stood up straighter and twiddled his thumbs. “I never imagined you might be the least bit interesting, Nicholas,” Nick didn’t have time to be offended, he was too consumed by the feeling of the pain releasing him. It faded quickly, like there was no wound, but he was exhausted and the knowledge that it could return at any moment was more than enough to give him pause.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Julie’s brain kept wandering back to the graveyard. She blamed her dad.

When she had gone to pick up their takeout with him a few days before he had admitted, white-knuckled at the wheel, that he had snooped when he was there and wanted to regret it but couldn’t. As much as felt guilty for invading the band’s privacy and could feel the weight of knowledge on his shoulders like he was Atlas, he couldn’t stop thinking that it was a double-edged sword and now that he knew he could do his best to help and honour their memories.

She looked at his face in the rear-view mirror as he spoke, focusing intently on driving safely and trying his hardest to stop his hands from shaking. He kept the details brief but Julie knew enough to feel a tempest of anger and sadness brewing in her stomach.

“I saw their graves, Mija,” he had sighed and Julie had tensed up immediately, all ability to think of anything else escaping her. “I saw their graves and I didn’t like what I saw,” Julie couldn’t help but wonder what that might mean as she searched her father’s eyes in the mirror hoping to find compassion rather than disapproval for her boys. Ray let the silence bleed to fill the cracks in the environment for a moment too long. “What do you know about their families, Mija?” His voice was meek and quiet and Julie hadn’t heard him like that for a while.

“I only really know about Luke’s,” she admitted, “They’re nice people but they regret a lot,”

Ray nodded stiffly. It made perhaps too much sense. “¿Y Reggie y Alex?” His tone was pleading but Julie had nothing to give him, “¿No sabes nada?” 

She shook her head. “They don’t talk about their families,”

Ray made a face, “I don’t think their families talk about them either, mija,”

“Oh,”

“They’re all buried next to each other,” Ray told her and Julie felt distinctly like she was intruding on a part of the boys’ afterlife she shouldn’t be after having lectured them on boundaries. Yet she just  _ had  _ to know. “I don’t think Reggie’s family have been back there in a while,” it was maybe as much as Ray could say before all of his parental feelings would settle like a gargoyle on his shoulder. “And I don’t think Alex’s family were ever there,”

“And you could tell that from their graves?” Julie fished few her memories of the boys, of Reggie flinching when doors were closed with too much force or people argued near him, of Alex poofing out of the room like it would burn him to be there while they were saying grace, of the panic that flooded their faces in moments that Julie couldn’t understand but their bandmates always seemed to be able to. Ray nodded again, tersely. She made a face. “And Luke’s parents don’t leave anything for them?”

Ray shook his head and wondered why. Julie frowned. “They didn’t love the idea of the band,” she admitted, “but there are photos of all of them in their house,” Ray filed that away to ask her about later, “and I think their concern was always the music, I’m pretty sure they like Alex and Reggie well enough as people,” Ray furrowed his brow.

“And they just never left Alex anything?” it didn’t make sense to him. He could understand not having the money to spare to always be buying new flowers for all three of the boys but Alex didn’t have a single memento of his short life.

Julie shook her head and quickly became resolute. “We can leave them something?” she made it sound like a suggestion but they both knew it wasn’t one. When Julie got an idea in her head she went through with it.

Julie had been mulling over how to ask the boys about flowers and whether she should try to do it subtly or just come clean about the graves since she had had that conversation with her dad. For the past few days it had been like a weight that emerged out of the thin air sometimes and she didn’t want to think about it but hadn’t been able to stop. 

Thursday was different. On Thursday, as she walked home from school, Julie was thinking about flowers and just how dead her friends were because it seemed easier than the alternative. Julie didn’t want to think about Nick. There was something about the sudden change that made her skin crawl and her stomach wind itself into intricate knots. Nick was always a sweetheart, always perceptive and empathetic and emotionally intelligent. The Nick she knew didn’t loom and didn’t speak so low and didn’t prod and pry. And, in spite of her best efforts, Julie was thinking about him.

She essentially fell through her front door, almost tripping over her feet as she tried to kick her shoes off in the entryway so she could collapse on the couch. Her head was swimming and her eyelids felt like lead. She saw Alex standing in the kitchen as she stumbled blindly past it and her spirits hopped upwards just a little.

“Please tell me you’re making something good?”

He grinned at her from beside the oven. “Reggie and Luke told Carlos I used to play basketball,” that was a new piece of information.

“Alex Mercer was a jock?” she teased but he didn’t laugh. His eyes found a spot on the floor as though it were fascinating. “Sorry,” she winced, “I didn’t realise that was a sore spot,”

He shook his head, “Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged, “Carlos wanted me to play and apparently making your mum’s cookies was the only way he was letting me get out of it,”

Julie grinned up at him. “Do I need to fight you for the role of mum friend, Alex?”

Luke poofed in as though Julie had summoned him. He looked between them very seriously. “Don’t,” Julie wasn’t sure if he was warning them or pleading with them but she found the sincerity painted across his features surprisingly attractive.

Reggie poofed in a moment later. “My bets are on Lex,” he looked at Julie as Luke tried to glare holes in the back of his head, “No offense, but you’ve never cleaned and bandaged my knees with my favourite cake in the oven,”

“Your favourite cake?” Alex had a hand on his hip and his eyebrow cocked but the twitching at the corner of his lips gave him away, “Reg, every time I asked you had a new answer,”

“Have you been holding out on me Alex?” Julie had her hands on her hips, “All this time you could have been doing that for me too?”

“In my defence,” The timer started beeping and Alex bent over to get the cookies out of the oven, “You don’t get hurt nearly as much as Reg used to, and I don’t think your dad would have reacted well to ingredients floating around the kitchen,”

“He knows now,” she raised her eyebrows, “which means I expect supernatural room service,”

He chuckled at her and then slapped her hand away when she reached for a cookie, They smelled so good and she was quickly becoming very impatient. “They’re too hot,” he told her, “You can wait ten minutes, go sit down,” Julie was about to when Alex leaned over to her and said quietly enough so only she could hear it “We don’t have a Butlers in the Buff service,” Julie immediately went bright red, “But I’m sure I could get Luke to bring you a cookie and some lemonade… fully clothed of course,”

She went bright red and hit his chest with a flat palm. “Two cookies,” she managed to choke out a correction to the order and Alex laughed. She giggled back.

“What did he say?” Luke asked her, almost urgently. She wasn’t about to admit to anything so she just shook her head. That didn’t stop Luke and Reggie’s attempts at interrogation but she was glad for the distraction.

“God,” Luke shook his head at Alex as Julie wandered to the couch, “I can’t believe Flynn said you were her favourite,”

“Well,” Alex tucked his thumbs into his pockets, “I assumed that might be Reggie,” He looked over at his friend who was trying to drift subtly towards the garden where he knew Ray was, “But you’d be more people’s favourite if you weren’t such a dickhead,”

Julie could hear them play fighting from her spot on the couch, muttering venomless insults at each other, maybe ten minutes away from all out wrestling on her kitchen floor. “Don’t knock over the cookies,” she warned them. Alex laughed at her and, from the sound of it, Luke had taken that moment to wrangle him into a headlock.

About ten minutes later a rather dishevelled-looking Luke was bringing her cookies and lemonade with exaggerated grandeur. She tried not to go red again and shot evil eyes to where she saw Alex’s head poking around the corner. She was sure she saw him grinning.

The fun and camaraderie of the moment didn’t last long. There was a knock at her front door and she turned to the two ghosts in the room. “Make sure Reggie knows that you guys can’t hang around me while Nick’s here,” Luke grimaced at the floor and Julie tried not to feel too happy about it, “I don’t want him hearing you, I’ve explained the ghost thing too many times,”

She opened the front door slightly reluctantly and led Nick to the kitchen island, deciding she didn’t want to lead him any further into her house than she needed to. The ghosts must have poofed away when she had been getting the door and suddenly the house felt empty. She tried not to dwell on it and fished the books from her bag as Nick did the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Willie is finally here and Alex is clueless and Caleb is being a bastard.  
> I also have no idea if the term "In the buff" is used in the US and I have a feeling it isn't, but I didn't know how else to phrase that and I think there are enough clues in context for what a butler in the buff is so yeah, idiot friends make stupid jokes.  
> Chapter title from Hometown by Brandon Stansell (this is really making me realise how all over the place my music taste is...).

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is definitely the most dialogue-heavy one on account of the need for explanations and I know not much really happens but chapter two should be up and edited within a few days. And the first chapter title is from "Nights Like These" by Pigeon Pit


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